Lesson video

Hi there, my name is Ms. Marks and I'm going to be your religious education teacher today.

And today we're going to be learning about Martin Luther and the Protestant Reformation, and a rebellion that Martin Luther did, which changed the course of the history of Christianity in Europe, and some might say the whole of Christianity around the world.

And so when you're ready, let's go.

So by the end of today's lesson, you'll be able to explain how and why Martin Luther rebelled against the religious authorities of his time.

Let's start with our keywords.

Indulgences.

Ways through which Christians in the Catholic Church may be granted some reduction in the punishment of sins after forgiveness by God.

Monk.

A member of a religious group of men who often live separate from the rest of society.

Protestant Reformation.

A Christian religious movement in the 16th century that aimed to reform the Catholic Church, but caused new denominations to be created.

Theses.

Statements or ideas put forward for a discussion, argument, or debate.

Purgatory.

The process or place where a person's soul is prepared for heaven after death.

So today's lesson will have three sections, and those three are who was Martin Luther, Martin Luther's beliefs, and Martin Luther's rebellion.

So let's start with our first section.

Who was Martin Luther? Have you got a piece of paper near you? If you did have a piece of paper and you could write something on it to change the world, what would you write and why? Have a think about what you would write.

Perhaps you could even jot it down, talk to the person next to you, or you can talk to me.

We'll come back to that later.

First of all, let's think about who was Martin Luther.

Well, here I've got a map of Europe, many countries that are in Europe, and the country we're thinking about today is Germany, which I've got a circle on here.

And Martin Luther was a Christian monk who lived and studied in Germany.

And most of his work is written in the 16th century.

So 1500's.

He was born in 1483 and then died in 1546.

The printing press arrived in Europe about 50 years before he was born.

So that is the way that things could be printed rather than handwritten every time.

So that really transformed, massively, how ideas could be spread around, which you'll see has an influence on Martin Luther and his rebellion.

And he wrote something on a piece of paper which changed Europe forever.

A bit like our piece of paper we thought about earlier.

Let's do a quick check.

In which country did Martin Luther live? Was it Italy, Germany, or England? Pause the video and have a think.

That's right.

It was Germany.

Fantastic.

So here we have an artist's impression of what Martin Luther looked like because obviously 500 years ago we didn't have cameras to take photos of him.

And we know that he was born into a Catholic family in Germany because the Catholic faith at that time was the main type of Christianity that was in Europe, particularly in Germany.

And in this part of Europe that was the main religious denomination which had power and influence across Europe.

So we know he was born into a Catholic family in Germany.

And his family sent him to university in the hope that he would become a lawyer.

So he was born into a fairly wealthy family who wanted him to become a lawyer and help support the family business.

So they sent him off to university.

Whilst he was at university, Martin Luther became more interested in religion.

So they sent him to go and become a lawyer, and he actually got more and more interested in religion whilst he was at university.

And his rebellion that we are thinking about today happened during the 16th century.

So the 1500's is the 16th century is what we are looking at, which is around 500 years ago.

So how did Martin Luther get more interested in religion whilst he was at university, then? Well, here's a very important story about how this happened.

Martin Luther's family were copper miners, and had enough money to send him to university where he was studying law.

He was living away from home but would return to visit his family.

And one day in 1505, he was travelling by horse through a forest after seeing his family when a thunderstorm came.

He was almost struck by lightning and cried out to Saint Anne, who was the saint for miners, to ask for help from.

He said to Saint Anne that if he survived the lightning strike, he would give his life over to God and become a monk.

He survived the storm and he was true to his word.

Within weeks he had joined a community of Augustinian monks who lived simple, obedient, and celibate lives, including promises to live in poverty.

And we can see a picture of a monastery here, which is where he would've lived in this community with other monks together.

Now, as part of Martin Luther's role as a monk, later he was sent to visit Rome, which is in modern day Italy.

And he was very excited about visiting the city.

It was so important in his religion.

It's believed to be the site where Saint Peter, a disciple of Jesus and the first Pope, was killed and buried.

He visited important sites and performed many prayers.

He saw, however, church leaders that he thought were corrupt.

He thought the priests and leaders were not educated enough in Christian teachings and were using different ways to get funds from Christians.

And these funds were being spent on lives of luxury with expensive buildings being made.

And he saw that people were being promised forgiveness from God if they gave over money to the church.

So these are some of the things that Martin Luther saw when he visited Rome, things he wasn't expecting to see as part of his religion.

And if you remember, as a monk he had taken a vow, or a promise, of living in poverty and not spending lots of money and having lots of expensive things.

So to him this was a bit of a shock.

So now that we thought a little bit about Martin Luther's story, perhaps we can think about what might shape his worldview, how he sees the world and understands what's happening around him.

Well, here we have Andeep, Sofia, Lucas, and Aisha discussing some of these things.

Andeep says, "I think going to Rome had an influence on his worldview." So if you remember that the things that Martin Luther saw that he wasn't expecting to see that kind of shocked him a bit in Rome, would that have influenced how he thought about his religion and Christianity? Sofia says, "I think nearly being struck by lightning influenced his worldview." So that experience that he had where he thought he was going to die and he called out to God and he was helped, did that shape his worldview and the way he viewed his religion and the rest of Europe? Lucas says, "I think the new technology of the printing press helped shape it too." So if you remember about 50 years before Martin Luther was born, the printing press was invented, and that completely sort of radically transformed how ideas could be spread, how people could read different things that had been written rather than it having to be handwritten every time, it could be duplicated and sent out in a much further, larger area.

And Aisha says, "I think Christian scriptures and thinkers helped shape his worldview." So we know that he got really into studying religion when he was at university.

So reading those Christian scriptures, as well as what other thinkers had said previously.

And remember, he was a monk living in a community where they would've studied those things together too.

I wonder if you could think of anything else that might have shaped Martin Luther's worldview as well.

Let's do another check.

True or false, Martin Luther was brought up in a Protestant Christian family.

Is that true or False? Pause the video.

It's false.

But why? Well, it's false because the Protestant denomination of Christianity started because of people like Martin Luther, so it didn't really exist before Martin Luther has his rebellion.

So he's raised in a Roman Catholic family as the Protestant Reformation hasn't happened yet.

So let's practise what we've learned so far in this section.

You are going to explain who Martin Luther was in three sentences, and you must include the following words.

Germany, 16th century, and monk.

And you might like to use the sentence stem.

"Martin Luther was." So pause the video, have a go, and we'll have a look at what you've written in a moment.

Well done.

Some really hard work there.

Let's have a look at what you've written.

I asked you to explain who Martin Luther was in three sentences saying that you must include the following words, Germany, 16th century, and monk.

And your answer may look something like this.

Martin Luther was a Christian man who was born and lived in Germany.

Martin Luther lived during the 16th century.

And Martin Luther was a monk and part of the Roman Catholic Church.

Well done.

So onto our second section then.

Martin Luther's beliefs.

Now one important Roman Catholic teaching in relation to Martin Luther's beliefs is purgatory.

And it can be understood as this.

Humans sin against God, and so their souls cannot exist with God who's perfectly good.

So this is quite an important sort of teaching within Christianity that humans sin and do wrong and sort of break God's commands.

But God is perfectly good, and so God is perfectly good, cannot have sort of sinful, damaged human souls with God because God is perfectly good.

Within Christianity, Jesus' death on the cross enables God to forgive humans of their sins.

So this is quite an important Christian teaching, that Jesus, as the Son of God dying on the cross, enables God to sort of forgive humans of these sins, these things that they've done wrong.

But the belief of purgatory is that the souls are not pure whilst on earth.

So even though humans can be forgiven by God because of what Jesus did on the cross, this teaching holds the idea that those souls cannot be pure whilst on earth, 'cause people might carry on sinning.

You might be forgiven by God for your sins and then carry on.

It might be that the forgiveness happens at the end of the world on Judgement Day.

And so whilst on earth those souls cannot be pure.

So therefore, within this idea of purgatory, God is going to cleanse those sins or purify them, purify these souls through process called purgatory, preparing them for heaven.

So some people might believe it's actually a place, some people might believe it's just a process, it's just the name for that process of purifying somebody's soul, preparing them for heaven.

So I've heard it explained a bit like, if you knew you were going to go to the head teacher's office, if you were called down to the head teacher's office to go and speak to 'em about something, you might just doubly check that your tie was straight, your shirt was tucked in, and you look all smart and neat, ready to go and see the head teacher.

So it's kind of like preparing yourself to get to heaven, to spend eternity with God, who is perfectly good.

Someone needs to go through this process to sort of just purify and rid them of any of these sins or blemishes before they get to go and spend eternity with God.

And this is a teaching within the Roman Catholic faith.

It's not something that all Christians would necessarily believe.

And in Roman Catholic teaching, Christians can help those who've died and are going through this process of purgatory through offering prayers, doing acts of charity, taking the Eucharist.

The Eucharist is sometimes called Holy Communion or Mass, and it involves bread and wine as an important ceremony in Christianity.

So if somebody is in purgatory, whether it's a place or it's just a process, then within Roman Catholic teaching, those Christians who are still alive on earth today can do different actions which can help those people to go through that process of purgatory.

So you can do these different actions or works in able to help people to go through that process.

And this is known as indulgences.

So doing different actions or works which can help people to go through that process of purgatory to prepare them for heaven.

This is known as indulgences, and it's super important for us today with Martin Luther's rebellion.

So here I have an image of Johann Tetzel who is involved in the sale of indulgences at the time of Martin Luther.

So if you can see from the image here, there's quite a lot going on.

We've got, on the behind him, a kind of cabinet with different pieces of paper that say indulgences on them.

And at the front of him here, he's got a box with a key.

And it looks like it could be a money box, couldn't it? So I wonder if you can see what this image is trying to show us about Johann Tetzel.

And what's important is that he does not necessarily represent all of the church leaders at the time of Martin Luther.

And this practise that he was doing is not something that happens today as part of the Roman Catholic faith.

At the time of Martin Luther there was some Roman Catholic religious leaders who were selling indulgences for money.

So these leaders promised to help get loved ones out of purgatory more quickly, or help people avoid purgatory altogether by donating money to the church.

And one of these indulgence sellers was a man named Johann Tetzel.

Johann Tetzel was a convincing salesman who travelled around Europe raising funds for some church leaders and buildings.

And he made promises to people that not only past, but future sins were forgiven by God.

And he gave people paper as certificates to prove this.

And after the invention of the printing press, more of these were sold as they didn't have to be handwritten.

And actually, apparently this was one of the first things that was mass produced on the printing press, was these indulgences that people could buy as this sort of ticket out of purgatory and into heaven.

So let's do a quick check.

At the time of Martin Luther, some church leaders were selling indulgences for money.

Is that true or false? Pause the video and have a think.

Yeah, that is true.

Some church leaders were selling indulgences for money at the time of Martin Luther.

It's not something that's done today.

So we've thought about how Christian scriptures might have shaped Martin Luther's worldview and his rebellion that he goes on to do.

So here's an important piece of Christian scripture for Martin Luther that kind of speaks to this issue.

This is part of a letter written by Saint Paul to the Ephesians, and it's in the New Testament section of the Bible.

"For it is by grace that you've been saved through faith.

And it is this not from yourselves, it's the gift of God, not by works, so that no one can boast." What's the difference between faith and good works? Especially if you look at this passage, what could be the difference? Have a think about that.

Talk to the person next to you, or you can talk to me.

And do you think this part of scripture shows one as being more important than the other? Does this seem to show that faith or works is more important than the other? What do you think? Well, we can think of faith as being a belief in something else.

So it's almost as if the the strength is in that other thing rather than yourself.

So you are believing in something, either in the power of God, or the actions that God did, perhaps the actions that Jesus did, perhaps Jesus raising from the dead after being killed on the cross.

So these are all things that someone could have faith in.

And this part of scripture suggests that faith in God and the actions of Jesus is what gonna save Christians.

And good works are the things that humans do.

So works are the actions that humans can try and do.

So following God's commands, doing what God commands humans to do.

acts of charity, acts of generosity, these are things that humans can do as good works.

And that could be done by my own sort of power and my own strength, so I might think that I can save myself by doing these works, but this passage from Paul seems to suggest that works cannot do that.

Works cannot save humans, and they can't boast that they've done it themselves.

So for Martin Luther, the sale of indulgences was an example of a work, a sort of the human effort, that human to speed up, or get themselves to heaven, or to help someone else get to heaven.

And for Martin Luther, humans can't do that.

They can't get themselves to heaven more quickly.

It can only be through faith in what God and Jesus have done.

So you can see how Christian scriptures like this could influence Martin Luther to say that the sale of indulgences is not really right.

Now we said that not only Christian scriptures, but Christian thinkers would've influenced Martin Luther's worldview.

And we know that he was an Augustinian monk.

So that means his brotherhood of monks that he was with were following the interpretations and sort of teachings of Christianity from Saint Augustine who was a really influential early Christian thinker from about 1,000 years before Martin Luther was writing.

And this really does influence Martin Luther's worldview, and we can see it in this way.

Augustine often wrote about how humans were sinful and cannot do enough good works to be saved by God.

So he has a big influence on different ideas around sin, and when humans don't get things right and follow God's commands.

And so for Augustine, humans could never do enough good works to be saved by God.

A human could never do enough good to be saved of their own efforts.

So if you think back to that passage we were just looking at a minute ago.

So why could that influence Martin Luther's beliefs about the sale of indulgences? Have a think about that.

You could talk to the person next to you, or talk to me.

Well, we could say that by humans buying and selling indulgences, they are trying of their own effort, from their own works, to sort of get themselves to heaven or to earn off some of that time in purgatory.

And for Augustine, it's very important that humans cannot do that because they're so sinful, they can never do that of their own effort.

It's only really through the kind of actions and the will of God that this can happen.

So this is going to influence Martin Luther and the idea of indulgences, especially indulgences being sold.

So let's do another check.

Is this true or false? Martin Luther believed that humans could reduce the time spent in purgatory through buying indulgences.

Is that true or false? Pause the video and have a think.

It's false.

But why? Well, Martin Luther believed that buying indulgences was an example of a human work, and that humans were not able to achieve forgiveness through their own actions.

This is influenced by the Bible and Christian thinkers such as Augustine.

So time for another practise task to check what we've learned.

Here, we have our image of Johann Tetzel.

And you're going to use this image as a prompt to explain what practise was involved in that Martin Luther objected to.

And you should use the following words.

Purgatory, indulgences, sin, forgive, and works.

And there's lots going on in that picture, remember, which could help remind you of what he was up to.

So pause the video and have a go, and we'll see what you've written in a moment.

Well done.

That was some really good work there.

Let's have a look and see what you've written.

So I asked you to use this image as a prompt to explain what practise Johann Tetzel was involved in that Martin Luther objected to.

And we've got our lovely image here of Johann Tetzel doing something that we know Martin Luther didn't think was right.

Your answer might look like this.

In the Roman Catholic Church there's a teaching that after death people go through purgatory before reaching heaven.

Johann Tetzel was selling indulgences to people promising that God would forgive their sins and reduce their time in purgatory.

He sold them pieces of paper and gave the money to other church leaders.

And Martin Luther objected to the sale of indulgences because he believed only God could forgive sins, And so forgiveness could not be achieved through human works.

So well done for your hard work there.

Onto our third section now, Martin Luther's rebellion.

So here I have an image of a stained glass window which is in a church in the United States of America, in Washington.

And it's actually in the National Cathedral.

It's a really important building there.

And you could see it's got Martin Luther, and it says Wittenberg, and he's banging a piece of paper onto a church door.

So something about this must have been really influential if it's all the way over there in the United States of America in a stained glass window in a church.

So let's find out what happened.

It is a widely held legend that Martin Luther started the Protestant Reformation through putting a piece of paper on the door of a church on the 31st of October, 1517.

This piece of paper had 95 statements written by Martin Luther, which were intended to start a discussion within the Catholic Church.

Martin Luther wanted church leaders to say that what Johann Tetzel and others were doing was wrong.

And these statements are called theses, as they're intended to spark a debate.

This was a common way for academic discussions to happen at the time.

In fact, we know he wrote it as a letter to other church leaders, even if he didn't actually put it onto the door of the church.

So this is a bit of a legend that he banged it onto the door of the church.

It may have happened or it may not have, but we do know that he wrote it down on paper, which was then sent to those church leaders and reproduced later.

So we are talking a lot today about something that happened 500 years ago.

And so many of the things we are looking at are referring historical sources, and how we can understand something that happened hundreds of years ago.

But how can we judge how useful a historical source is? Well, we can look at three things when we look at historical source.

We can look at the nature of it.

What type of source is it? We could look at the origins.

When and where was it created? And we can look at its purpose.

Why was it created? And these three things can help us understand not only the event, but how useful that source can be in helping us understand that event.

So here I have an image of the "95 Theses" which were written by Martin Luther, and originally written in Latin 'cause that was the language of the Church at the time.

And so therefore he would've written it in Latin to the other church leaders.

We can look at the "95 Theses" text as a primary historical source.

So that means it was written by Martin Luther at that time.

It's not something someone's written about him or written hundreds of years later about the effect of it.

This was the actual source itself written at that time.

And this can help us to understand him and his role in the Protestant Reformation.

The "95 Theses" were written by Martin Luther whilst he was part of the Roman Catholic Church.

So he in the Church, he's part of the Church and he's writing these theses to sort of spark this debate and discussion.

He wrote them to other leaders to start a debate around the sale of indulgences.

So if you do sit and read all 95, you can see how much the sale of indulgences really kind of influences what he writes as part of these theses.

And that's kind of the main aim of what he's writing about is to do with the sale of indulgences.

So how can we judge the usefulness of this as a historical source? Well, first we can look at the nature of it.

So the nature of the "95 Theses" it's a primary source written by Martin Luther.

The origins.

So it was written in 1517 whilst he was at Wittenberg University in Germany.

So this was written before the Protestant Reformation happens, but it can help us sort of understand some of the events that led up to it.

And the purpose.

So why did he write this? Well, he wrote this intending to start a debate with other church leaders about the sale of indulgences.

And we know that because of the "95 Theses." And the theses are things that people were writing to sort of spark a debate and a discussion.

And that was very common at the time for the way that these debates and discussions happened in academia and across universities.

So let's have a look at some of the text of the "95 Theses" then.

Here's just a few examples of what he wrote.

Remember he wrote it in Latin, so this is obviously an English translation.

"They preach only human doctrines who say that as soon as the money clinks into the money chest, the soul flies out of purgatory." "Christians are to be taught that the Pope does not intend the buying pardons to be compared in any way to works of mercy." "Christians are to be taught that if the Pope knew the exactions of the pardon-preachers, he would rather that Saint Peter's church go to ashes than it should be built up with the skin, flesh, and bones of his sheep." So here's three examples of the "95 Theses" that Martin Luther wrote against the sale of indulgences.

So who is Martin Luther speaking about here? Well, the phrase "They preach only human doctrines who say that as soon as the money clinks into the money chest, the soul flies out of purgatory" was attributed to Johann Tetzel.

Whether he said it or not, we don't know, but this is what people were saying that Johann Tetzel was saying as part of his sales pitch.

You know, as soon as the money goes in that box that we saw in the image, the soul flies out purgatory.

And this is something that really Martin Luther couldn't agree with.

And he said this is something humans have made up.

It's not something that's in the Bible or in Christian scriptures.

Also, Martin Luther in the "95 Theses" is sort of suggesting that the Pope isn't aware that these things are happening.

It's not an official Christian teaching that this should be happening.

And he's sort of calling out to the Pope to say, "If you knew what was happening, surely you would want to stop this and say that this isn't part of Christianity." And remember the theses were written to sort spark this debate.

So he's sort of offering this as a challenge and saying, do you know that this is happening and what are you going to do about it? And at the bottom here we've got him saying about how the pardon-preachers are sort of raising money for Saint Peter's Church.

So this was in Rome where Martin Luther saw that lots of this money was being spent on these big, sort of lavish buildings.

But Martin Luther knew the poverty that the money was coming from, and he felt this was kind of a form of exploitation and that this was being built, he used this quite evocative language here, skin, flesh, and bones of his sheep.

And he thinks it's wrong for that money to be spent on the kind of lavish, expensive lifestyles that he saw in Rome when he went to go and visit.

So what can these "95 Theses" tell us about Martin Luther and the Protestant Reformation? Have a think, talk to the person next to you, or talk to me.

So what they can show us is that Martin Luther had concerns about the activity of some of the church leaders of his time, and he wanted to sort of call it out, and he wanted to see other church leaders challenge that and say this was not part of the Christian teachings in their religion.

As a primary source, the "95 Theses" cannot tell us about the beliefs and actions in Catholic Christianity today.

It cannot tell us about all of the Catholic sort of beliefs and practises that were happening at the time of Martin Luther.

It's just what he saw, what he thought is what we can know from the "95 Theses." Remember as a primary source, it's just Martin Luther's perspective on what was going on around him that we can know about.

So let's do a quick check.

Which statement is the most accurate about using "95 Theses" as a historical source? The "95 Theses" can tell us what all Roman Catholics believed at the time of Martin Luther.

The "95 Theses" can tell us what Martin Luther's views were on the Roman Catholic Church of his time.

The "95 Theses" can tell us about the Roman Catholic Church today.

Which of those is most accurate? Pause the video and have a think.

Yes, that's right.

The "95 Theses" can tell us what Martin Luther's views were on the Roman Catholic Church of his time.

So how did Martin Luther writing his "95 Theses" on a piece of paper start to change the world and the face of Christianity in Europe, and spark the Protestant Reformation? Where here we have an image which again depicts an important moment in the story of Martin Luther's rebellion against the religious authorities of his time.

Martin Luther's "95 Theses" spread far beyond the university where he worked, and the Christian leaders that he sent it to.

They were quickly translated out of Latin into German, which meant you didn't have to be a trained priest or a monk to be able to read them.

The invention of the printing press meant the ideas could be spread far more quickly and much further than if they had to be handwritten.

And Martin Luther continued to debate the "95 Theses" with church leaders in Germany and beyond.

The Pope eventually heard of his ideas and offered him 60 days to give them up or face some consequences.

He refused, and the Pope declared that Martin Luther was no longer a Christian.

Martin Luther didn't accept the Pope's authority to decide this, and so he still considered himself to be a Christian.

The Roman Emperor then declared that Martin Luther was an outlaw and no one should shelter or support him.

Martin Luther went into exile where he worked on a translation of the Bible from Latin into German.

And some of Europe sided with the Roman Catholic Church, but others sided with Martin Luther.

And this is often seen as the start of the Protestant Reformation.

So let's think about this rebellion from Martin Luther, then.

He rebelled against the church authority of his time, through writing the "95 Theses" then that the ideas spread, and when he was asked to take it back, he refused to.

And so this is sort of seen as the beginning of the Protestant Reformation, or one of the events that caused the Protestant Reformation where people had to choose which side they were on.

And was he right to rebel in this way? Well, Andeep and Sofia are discussing Martin Luther's rebellion here.

Andeep says, "He was right because he tried debating the church leaders first." So if you remember, the "95 Theses" were written as a way to sort of start a discussion and a debate around the sale of indulgences, should it be done or not? And Martin Luther was looking to church leaders to sort of say, "No, this isn't right and this practise shouldn't be happening." Sofia says, "He was wrong because his actions cause more divisions in the Christian Church." And so this was seen as like another split, and then other splits have come since then.

Do you agree with Andeep or Sofia? Or maybe you have a different view, and why? Have a think about that.

You could talk to the person next to you, or talk to me.

Some great ideas there.

Yeah, there are reasons why we could say he was right to rebel against the church authority, but also some might argue that this caused many divisions and he shouldn't rebel against the church authority of his time.

So let's do a quick check.

Which of these events in the story of Martin Luther and the Protestant Reformation came first? Luther visiting Rome.

Tetzel's sale of indulgences.

Luther almost being struck by lightning.

Which of those came first in the story of Martin Luther and the Protestant Reformation? Pause the video and have a think.

That's right, they're all important in the story of Martin Luther and the Protestant Reformation.

But really the first one was where he was almost struck by lightning and decided to give his life over as a monk.

So let's practise what we've learned so far today.

So the first part of this practise task is that you are going to use the images below to retell how Martin Luther rebelled against the Roman Catholic Church of his time.

So you've got three images here, and for each one you're going to use them to say what happened with Martin Luther and his rebellion against the Roman Catholic Church of his time.

You're going to use the key words from our lesson in your response.

Indulgences, Protestant Reformation, purgatory, theses, and monk.

And you should write at least four sentences.

So pause the video, and off you go, and we'll see what you've written in a moment.

Well done.

That was some really good thinking there.

So let's have a look at what you wrote.

I asked you to use the images to retell how Martin Luther rebelled against the Roman Catholic Church of his time.

And your answer might look something like this.

Martin Luther rebelled against the Roman Catholic Church of his time by not agreeing with the sale of indulgences.

He was a monk who saw the sale of indulgences as going against his Christian beliefs.

He didn't believe that humans could reduce the amount of time spent in purgatory through buying indulgences.

He wrote about this in his "95 Theses" to start a debate within the church, but he was exiled instead, and eventually this led to the Protestant Reformation.

So, part two.

Was Martin Luther right to challenge the religious authorities of his time? You're going to give a view on this question and a reason for why someone could hold this view.

And you may like to use one of the sentence stems. "Martin Luther was right." "Martin Luther was not right." "It is unclear if Martin Luther was right or not." This doesn't have to be your personal view, it's just a view that somebody could have on this question.

So pause the video, have a go, and we'll see what you've written in a moment.

Well done.

Some really good thinking there.

So I asked you to give a view on this question.

Was Martin Luther right to challenge the religious authorities of his time? And your answer may look like one of the following.

"Martin Luther was right to challenge the religious authorities of his time because the sale of indulgences went against his beliefs surrounding the religion." So he wanted to start a debate about this.

Or you could have written, "Martin Luther was not right to challenge the religious authorities of his time because his challenge led to a split in the Christian Church, which has resulted in the religion being more divided now." So these are two different views that somebody could have on Martin Luther's rebellion against the religious authorities of his time.

So let's summarise what we've learned so far today.

Martin Luther and the Reformation.

Martin Luther was an important figure in the Protestant Reformation who lived in Germany at a time when the Roman Catholic Church had much power and influence there.

Martin Luther was a Roman Catholic monk who saw beliefs and practises in the church around him that he didn't agree with.

Martin Luther rebelled against the Roman Catholic Church by challenging the sale of indulgences by some of the leaders in the church.

And there are different perspectives on whether Martin Luther was right to challenge the authority of his time.

So some fantastic work there.

I wonder if you're going to go and change the world with your piece of paper that you wrote on, and I'll see you next time.

Bye-bye.